1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to the field of location systems and protocols for mobile devices.
2. Related Art
Communication networks exist that allow for electronic mobile devices to communicate with and retrieve information from a variety of content providers in the network. The mobile device can be located anywhere in the world.
For particular types of information, it is necessary to provide location information in order to process a request from the mobile device. For example, a user may require weather information from a content provider located on the Internet. In order for the content provider to process a request for weather information, the content provider must know where the user is geographically located in the world.
Heretofore, methods that provide location information of a user, through their mobile device, are network carrier, connection hardware, and connection software dependent in that a particular type of hardware can only interface with a particular network carrier in order to provide location information of a specific format. In other words, the entire system is designed for a one-to-one relationship between the hardware device and the network carrier when providing location information to a third party, such as a content provider.
Further, it is preferable that the location information be of a specific format in order for the content provider to understand the information and process a request for information. In some cases, the method may also be dependent on a proxy server to convert location information of the specific format to a published standard format. In that case, the proxy server is able to interpret and understand the information of the specific format.
For example, an Internet capable mobile handheld device can submit a request for weather information to a content provider over a communication network through a proxy server. The proxy server acts to convert the transfer of information between the mobile device and the content provider. In fact, the proxy server ensures that location information coming from the mobile device is converted to a particular format as requested by the content provider. The request for location information of a specific format from the content provider may be embedded in the web clipping application specific to the content provider. The format required by the content provider may be a mailing zip code as used in the United States of America.
Understanding that the content provider requires location information, the connection software driver that connects the mobile device to a network communicates with a particular network carrier for specific location information. The communicated location information can be of any particular type, as long as the connection software driver, the network carrier, and the proxy server understand the format and type of information.
In particular, one type of information can be tower information. When communicating with the network, the connection software driver in the mobile device may have access to information about the tower or base station that the mobile device connects through to access the communication network. Specifically, a particular type of information is the tower ID or identification number.
The connection software driver in the mobile device sends the tower ID information to the proxy server. The proxy server then can convert the tower ID information to a zip code that corresponds to the location of the accessed tower. This conversion can be facilitated with the use of a mapping table that ties specific towers to specific zip codes.
After the proxy server converts the location information, the complete request for weather information, including the converted location information, is sent to the content provider for weather information. The content provider, with the proper location information in the proper zip code format, then sends a web page back to the proxy server with the weather information to be sent to the mobile device.
A problem exists in that the process for transferring the location information is device and network carrier specific. If the mobile device were to connect to the Internet using a different network carrier and different connection software driver, then location information of any type would not be generated. The connection software driver would not be able to or understand how to receive tower information from the different network carrier in order to process a request for location information. Thus, the method requires that the mobile device use a particular network carrier.
Thus, the mobile device must connect to the network using specific connecting hardware, a specific connecting software driver, and a specific network carrier. Each of these dependent components understand that location information of a specific format is required, e.g., that of tower ID. If, however, the mobile device uses a different connecting hardware, such as a wireless internal modem instead of a built-in radio, the software driver associated with the modem will not know or understand that location information is requested. As such, the software driver associated with the modem will not be able to send the necessary tower ID information to the proxy server.